Taught By

Enric Martí Gòdia

Associate Professor

Pere Nolla Rodríguez

Freelance y Colaborador docente

Jordi Arnal Montoya

CEO en Kaneda Games y Colaborador docente

Transcript

Let's talk about documentation. Documentation is one of the most important design tasks. It is generated almost since the first steps on the video game development, since the design process begins. There are different kinds of documents and they variate depending on the amount of information it is going to contain, especially the amount of details it is going to have, as logically, documentation has less information in the beginning. While the projects grows up, and while the design goes on, the amount of documentation highly increases. So there are different kinds of documents such as the pitch, the game concept or the game design document. One of the designer's role is generating clear and concise documentation. This is very important as this documentation will be used as a tool for the other development teams, the other development groups such as artists and programmers, which in aim to generate content will use this documents. So it has to be clear, concise, concrete and very understandable. Also, when we talk on development processes it must be up-to-date. I'm going to explain some points on a design document draft, in this case, a game concept. Game concept is one of the documents generated in the beginning, and so it will try to summarize the main elements there will be inside the game when it is developed in its full version. Usually in a game concept document we can find those points: first, a point on the basic explanation on the game, a basic synthesis, a line, a line and a half in which it it mandatory to specify the genre and the POV. Next a brief extended description, in which there are more details on the characters, the actions, a bit of the story, its target, the platform it will be played on, etc. Then the game system which is the gameplay, defining with details the point of view. That is, the camera we are going to use, the game's objective, the basic interactive elements, the mechanics, all the actions the player is going to make, the controls, etc. It is also important to talk in the game concept about story and narrative elements. That is, the game setting regarding the story, the characters' motivations, who are the main characters? who are the enemies? which is our objective? what conflict is going to move the story and the plot?, etc. And logically in a game concept we must find concepts relative to both art and technology. About art it is not only aesthetics and setting, but also sound elements, including sound effects and the OST. At a technological level, specify what kind of technology we are going to use and what kind of complexity it is going to have. Well, now we will comment some elements related to the prototyping. As design has already started, documents have been generated, as well as prototypes which will test this design. A prototype is nothing but a simplified version of the game, in which we can test some basic mechanics. Those prototypes use an approximate art and technology, as we don't want to invest too much work on doing them. Their main purpose is testing mechanics, testing the game play and checking either it works or not. If the result is good and the test is satisfying, those prototypes will be the base to later develop the definitive video game. If the result isn't good, those prototypes can be discarded or they can be modified by going one step back in the conceptualization process, changing some things and trying it again in another prototype. I attach you a link to an extract from a PlayStation videogame called God of War, in which we can see many discarded levels which are in prototype format. As you can see in the video, which lasts about 7 minutes, those discarded levels have a basic and simple art but they are somehow playable. Now we will talk on the level design. All video games are structured in many episodes or levels. To create those levels, mechanics already designed are combined establishing different challenges with a progressive difficulty. Logically, designing levels implies a concept task and a lot of thinking, which is made by the level designer. Usually, once those levels are designed they are implemented in the engine and it is very frequent to find tools created specifically for the level designers, so that they can implement those levels and test them. Those programs are the well-known level editors. Here you can see two images of the level design concept part. Basically it consists on creating a map of the scenario, but a map that has information in an useful level, so that it can be later implemented in the game engine. So on the first image at the left, we have a general vision on a level, which sets the different level zones, as well as the basic itinerary the main character is going to follow. With more details, at the image at the right, we can see one of those zones zoomed in, in which the zone playability is specifically concreted. Here we have a starting point, an exit point, an enemy we have to get over in the middle, and four collectible items. This information needs to be captured in a level edition document, which is very important in aim to create and implement all the levels. To end up, we will talk on the design implementation. As we have been saying until now, the design implementation is done almost since the beginning of a video game's development process. Once documents are ready, artists and programmers can generate content, and once this content is ready it is implemented in the engine. The objective is always trying to implement it as soon as possible, so that it can be tested and checked whether it is working properly or not. Video games development is always recurrent. They try to generate specific content parts, instead of making the full game and then testing it, they pick a part of the game, they generate the art and the specific approval, they implement it on the engine and after that the game is tested. Once it is tested, obviously it is evaluated and this helps the game to be validated, corrected or discarded depending on the results. If the design and all the experience is what we wanted, it's perfect. We validate it and we go on with a new part of the content. If it isn't how we wanted it in the beginning, then it needs to be corrected or if we check a part of the content and we find out it is definitely not working, we even discard it. So the design lasts all the development process and the implementation, which is a part that lasts a lot of time, we have to edit and balance all the mechanics so that in the end we can get the wanted gameplay. And with this we end this module, so let's summarize some of its most important parts. Designing involves thinking and adapting the interactive elements in the video game. It is very important to know the target audience we are focusing. Designing is a transversal task. Design basic elements are mechanics, challenges and gameplay. Generating documents is one of the most important design elements. Levels generation is made by combining mechanics and challenges. During the development process the design keeps being implemented in aim to be tested, validated or corrected if necessary. So we got to the end of this module, we hope you liked it. See you in the next module.

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